Travel Writing Memoirs

Bowing to Elephants is a travel memoir with a twist—the story of an unloved rich girl from San Francisco who becomes a travel junkie, searching for herself in the world to avoid the tragic fate of her narcissistic, alcoholic mother. Haunted by images of childhood loneliness and the need to learn about her world, Dimond journeys to far-flung places—into the perfumed chaos of India; the nostalgic, damp streets of Paris; the gray, watery world of Venice in the winter; the reverent and silent mountains of Bhutan; and the gold temples of Burma.

In 2019, Tim Kaine—Virginia Senator and former Democratic vice presidential candidate—commemorated both his sixtieth birthday and his twenty-fifth year in public office by undertaking a three-part journey across the Virginia landscape as he hiked, cycled, and canoed across the state. His chronicle of the journey became an organic reflection of the extraordinary events occurring across America during that time, including impeachment trials, a global pandemic, growing racial protests, the January 6th attack on the Capitol, and more.

Restless to leave, eager to return: this memoir in essays captures the unrelenting pull between the past and the present, between traveling the world and staying home.

The year before her thirtieth birthday, Jen Ruiz decided to change everything. Despite being professionally accomplished and contributing to the world as an attorney at a nonprofit, she had yet to achieve the most important goal, according to society: becoming a wife and mother. So, after more ghostings than a graveyard, tired of dating apps and sitting in a windowless office, Jen embarked on an epic challenge to send her twenties out in style. Twelve months, twelve trips, no excuses.

When the struggle to save oil-soaked birds and restore blackened beaches left him feeling frustrated and helpless, John Francis decided to take a more fundamental and personal stand: He stopped using all forms of motorized transportation. Soon after embarking on this quest that would span two decades and two continents, the young man took a vow of silence that endured for 17 years.

In Polish: This is a story about the journey of two brothers who travelled through the largest river in the world on...bikes. But not ordinary bikes - they were "Amazonian” bikes. The story is as bodacious as the trip itself, which seemed like an unachievable madness, but turned out to be a great adventure and a valuable life lesson. For one of its heroes it was a dream come true, for another the last chance for salvation. The book is written by Piotr Chmieliński - the first person on Earth who sailed through the Amazon River in a kayak.

After a shocking diagnosis for a rare pituitary disease, and with her eighteen-year marriage in shambles, Risa's life has fallen far from picture-perfect. Recovering from brain surgery and desperate to get back to her former self, she signs up for the bike tour of a lifetime-six weeks from Canada to Mexico on the Pacific Coast Highway. The old Risa could have done the ride in her sleep, but for the new Risa, trapped in a body that no longer feels like her own and stuck in the company of her brain tumor, Bubba, the ride becomes a challenge unlike anything she's ever faced.

Rain in the Mountains brings together some of Ruskin Bond’s most beautiful works from his years spent in the foothills of the Himalayas in the town of Mussoorie. Through vivid images and lucid writing, Bond evokes the everyday sights and sounds, and captures the essence of mountain life. The musings on his natural habitat, in both prose and poetry, offer a view of that simple and affable world. Some of his writings featured in the book include: "Once Upon a Mountain Time", "Sounds I Like to Hear", "How Far Is the River" and "After the Monsoon".

In this moving, tender memoir of losing a beloved spouse, the longtime editor of Texas Monthly, newly widowed, returns alone to a city whose enchantment he's only ever shared with his wife, in search of solace, memories, and the courage to find a way forward.

Fifty-year-old canoe racer-turned-explorer West Hansen is planning to kayak the Amazon River when he learns that everyone - cartographers, adventurers, even his own sponsor, National Geographic Society - has misplaced the source of the world's greatest river. One of exploration's great prizes is suddenly back up for grabs, and to claim it all, Hansen has to shepherd a team of irascible Texans and international whitewater stars some 4,200 miles, from the crest of the Peruvian Andes to the Atlantic Ocean.

With the first world war raging across Europe, Shackleton's expedition to cross the South Pole became trapped by ice. Their ship, the Endurance, was crushed and the men were forced to survive in and escape from one of the world's most hostile environments. An incredible mission and an incredible escape. This is the story of one of the greatest sea journeys ever made.

Two Brits, George and Mark, set off from New York City to explore the back roads of America. In this calamity-ridden travel tale, George sets out in true clichéd fashion to discover the real America. Throw in plenty of run-ins with the police, rapidly dwindling finances, and Josephine - the worst car in the world - and you have all the ingredients for a classic American road trip. Will George and Mark make it all the way to California? And then there is Rachel, George's girlfriend, left back in England.

After purchasing one-way flights from New York City to Paris, Kyle James and his girlfriend Ashley quit their day jobs, planned futures, and daily paradigms to see as much of the world as they could. In 114 days, they trekked across 15 countries and 38 cities with nothing but their backpacks, their smartphones, and each other. Not Afraid of the Fall is the unvarnished story of their off-the-cuff journey: from cliff-jumping off Croatia's untouched coasts to bathing with rescued elephants in Thailand and far beyond.

When Adam Piggott rode his motorbike across Australia chasing a girl he barely knew, he didn't understand much about anything at all. He wanted to change his life, but he didn't know how or what to change. The girl was the catalyst that forced him out of his comfortable existence. This is the story of how a young man with no direction ended up working as a river guide in a range of exotic locations around the world.

Early on in his life, Matt craved a return to nature. When he became an adult, he set aside his comfortable urban life and lived entirely off the land. In this riveting narrative that brings together epic adventure and spiritual quest, he shows us what extraordinary things the human body is capable of when pushed to its limits. He learns the secrets of the Tarahumara Indians, which help him run the 1,600-mile Pacific Crest Trail in just 58 days and endure temperature swings of 100 degrees.

Suffused with her much-loved warmth and wit, Emma John's memoir follows her moving and memorable journey to master one of the hardest musical styles on earth - and to find her place in an alien world. Emma had fallen out of love with her violin when a chance trip to the American South introduced her to bluegrass music. Classically trained, highly strung and wedded to London life, Emma was about as country as a gin martini. So why did it feel like a homecoming?

American Oz is a rollicking, gritty, adventurous story of life in the secretive subculture of traveling carnivals. You'll never see your state fair or street festival the same way again. Comerford writes a bold, inspiring true story of a year working behind the scenes with the colorful characters and legends of carnivals. He shares stories of freaks, a carnival pimp, a tramp gold miner, and the last king of the sideshows.

The Interior Circuit is Goldman's story of his emergence from grief five years after his wife's death, symbolized by his attempt to overcome his fear of driving in the city. Embracing the DF (Mexico City) as his home, Goldman explores and celebrates the city, which stands defiantly apart from so many of the social ills and violence wracking Mexico. This is the chronicle of an awakening, both personal and political, "interior" and "exterior", to the meaning and responsibilities of home.

Timbuktu: the African city known to legend as a land of scholars, splendor and mystery, a golden age in the Sahara Desert. But to many it is a vaguely recognizable name - a flippant tag for "the most remote place on earth." With this fabled city as his goal, author Rick Antonson began a month-long trek. His initial plan? To get a haircut. Aided by an adventuresome spirit, Rick endures a 45-hour train ride, a swindling travel agent, "Third World, three-lane" roads, rivers, and a flat deck ferry boat before finally reaching Timbuktu.

P. J. O'Rourke, 'the funniest writer in America', harbours a guilty pleasure – ever since growing up the son of a car dealer in Ohio, he has been crazy about cars. In Driving Like Crazy, he reveals in his love for all things vehicular. From a thousand-mile expedition across Mexico to a trek through Kyrgyzstan in the back of the Soviet army surplus truck; from an alcohol-fuelled weekend in North Carolina to an eventful journey from Islamabad to Calcutta.